The ladder does not complain as I descend it. I know which rung sighs if I put my weight wrong, which one must be stepped over entirely. My feet find the floor without a sound, and I pause briefly, listening, counting Mama’s breaths through the thin wall.
Her curtain hangs still, a dark fold against darker shadow. I lift it just enough to peer through, careful not to let it brush the floor. She sleeps on her side, one hand tucked beneath her cheek, her breathing, a steady rise and fall that eases something in my chest. No cough, no restlessness.
Good.
I let the curtain fall back into place.
The front door waits in shadow. I cross the room lightly, lifting the latch with two fingers so it doesn’t snap back. The wood groans faintly anyway, testing me, but I still it with my palm until it obeys.
Cold air slips in, brushing my ankles as I turn sideways and ease through the gap, pulling the door closed behind me until it settles back into its frame. My hand rests there for a moment, feeling the faint vibration fade before I step away.
The village sleeps.
No voices. No firelight behind shutters. Only the known shapes of houses crouched in the dark, roofs black against a sky washed pale. A dog shifts somewhere far off, then settles again. Smoke no longer rises from the chimneys; the night has swallowed it whole.
I glance around as I always do, though not expecting to see anyone.
The path is empty, the shadows between houses deep and undisturbed. I pull my shawl tighter around my shoulders and start walking, my steps quiet on packed earth.
It is not winter yet; the night is cool, but it does not bite. The air carries the scent of damp grass and wood, of earth turned loose by recent days. I breathe it in, letting it settle into me before I move again, slipping past fences and sleeping walls, toward the far end of the village where the dark waits.
The path narrows as I leave the last house behind, the village fading quickly at my back—smoke, stone, sleeping breath—until there is only the open stretch before the trees and the seam where fields give way to forest.
I walk without hurry.
The woods open to me as they always do, branches parting into familiar shapes. The night's glow filters through them in broken shards, painting the ground in shifting shapes that move when the wind breathes through the canopy.
There, I slow.
The traps lie hidden near the treeline, where the men have set them year after year. I know where they are—each and every one of them. I know where they sleep beneath the leaves, where the iron teeth wait, rusted but eager for warmth and weight. I step around them without looking down too long, as if they might take offense. One careless move, one misjudged foot, and there would be no walking home.
Wood complains beneath me—no more than a whisper—but I pause, listening. Somewhere to my left, something small scurries away. Farther off, an owl calls once, then again, the sound hollow as it passes overhead. Leaves stir above me, though there is no wind I can feel.
I breathe in, the scent of moss and damp earth filling my lungs. Sap hangs heavy in the air. Somewhere nearby, water whispers over stone.
My shoulders ease without my noticing, my spine straightening, my steps growing lighter as the houses falls away behind me. The forest close in not as threat, but as held breath finally released. Here, I am not watched in the same way. It does not ask me to be smaller. It does not watch my hands or count my breaths.
Still, my fingers tighten around the rosary hidden beneath my shawl.
The beads are smooth now, worn pale where my thumb rubbed them again and again from the moment Mama pressed it into my hand, mouth tight with worry. Popa Vasile showed me how to move my fingers along it, how to count, how to speak the words that keep darkness at bay.
I whisper them now, barely sound at all.
Lord, guard my steps. Guide me. Let no evil touch me in body or soul.
My breath fogs in the air, the words disappearing with it as soon as they leave my lips, swallowed by bark and leaf and night.
I walk on, and soon, the trunks part ahead of me, opening onto a small clearing.
I crouch low in the herbs and wait, listening. The night answers with its quiet pulse—the far-off cry of an animal, the slow sigh of leaves stirring high above. Nothing moves close enough to matter.
Satisfied, I lower myself fully to the ground and reach to my belt, drawing the small dagger from its sheath. The narrow blade catches the moon, its edge kept honed with care. I test it once against my thumb, then turn to the earth.
I work carefully, cutting only what I need. Mugwort first, careful to take only the top growth, to leave the roots untouched. Juniper berries next, pried loose from their prickly shelter, staining my skin in dusky shades of violet as they fall. A few sprigs of yarrow. A touch of thyme where it grows stubbornly between stones.
Each stem yields with a faint tear, a stubborn resistance.
I lay them briefly on the ground, sorting by habit, then tuck them into the small leather pouch at my waist, its drawstring whispering as I loosen and tighten it again.
